While many companies are beginning to acknowledge the profit potential associated with churn reduction, few have mastered the art and science of customer service. In the digital age, the point of sale is no longer the singular point of victory. Customers are won (and lost) long before and long after the sales transaction. Retention is impacted by the experiences they have while evaluating and using products and services.

Recommendations

Companies can do three things to position service as “the new sales.”

Quantify service’s impact on the bottom line. Companies need strong analytics capabilities and new metrics such as Accenture’s “Post-Interaction Churn” to gain actionable insights about the economic impact of service on churn, revenue growth and profitability.

Give retention the attention it deserves. Prioritizing retention as highly as other growth initiatives and investing in service improvements that produce better customer experiences are critical. So is defining new leadership roles focused on retention: Align their responsibilities with those front-office C-suite roles that focus on delivering seamless customer experiences.

Tackle the most toxic interactions. According to Accenture research, 82 percent of switchers would have stayed with their original provider if the company had taken steps to address their dissatisfaction. Companies can improve retention by developing skills and analytics to isolate, understand and remediate the largest root causes of issues that frustrate customers most.

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